A brewmaster monk blog.

Sunnier's Brewmaster Auras 2.0

Mar 28th, 2013

I’ve updated my Weak Auras to be more visually efficient and to help me clean up my play in a few areas that I’m lacking. My auras are never really “finished”, but it’s time to share what I have with the rest of the world. (I’ll continue to update the current weak auras, since they’re basically the same on the inside.)

Shuffle

First, I’ve moved and minimized the two most important auras: stagger and shuffle. I realized that the timer bars didn’t convey much useful information, especially given the screen real estate provided them.

The most important information from the shuffle aura was knowing whether it was missing or about to fall off, so I implemented an icon that changes color to red when it’s fallen off, yellow when it’s low (ending in a few seconds), and green when the remaining duration is very high. This color trigger mirrors stagger, and the green version is a reminder that I should probably be Purifying or Guarding more.

Stagger

Stagger has also lost its duration as well. Since stagger is usually updated all the time, duration doesn’t make a big difference to your purifying brew usage. I’ve also change the formula behind the number displayed — instead of showing your current stagger tick, it displays the percentage of your health the total stagger will deal if left alone. (This is a modified formula from BrewsLeeArrakis; go check out his auras if mine aren’t your style.) I find this information is the most useful when it comes to deciding when to purify, and the percentage means that even if your health scales (either up with gear, or down with challenge modes) you can still react to the same numbers.

Unfortunately, removing the timer bars takes a lot from the visual prominence of these two important auras. To compensate, I’ve made these two icons larger compared to the rest.

In addition to that base change, I’ve added auras for Brewmaster Tier 15 bonuses. Two-piece provides a timer for when the Staggering buff is active. Four-piece makes the Stagger icon glow when the free Purifying Brew proc activates.

And finally, if I’m specced into Healing Elixirs, a small icon will appear when it is available (since Purifying Brew activates it).

Keg Smash and Energy Bar

The Keg Smash aura saw the most significant changes. Instead of an icon, it is only a progress bar that is tied to my energy bar. I made this change because my UI was getting too cluttered with icons and there were too many visual similarities between all the auras that it became difficult to make decisions based on them.

With this new aura, while Keg Smash is on cooldown a small progress bar and timer will appear directly above the energy bar. When it is off cooldown, the energy bar will glow. This positioning also provides the surprising benefit of encouraging me to pool energy, probably because the visual similarity between the Keg Smash timer and the energy bar makes me want to keep them both high.

The energy bar itself has been cleaned up a bit, but otherwise has not seen any big changes. Because it relates so closely to the new Keg Smash aura, it now belongs to the same group.

Chi Bar

The chi bar has seen some subtle but significant changes. I wanted to encourage pooling chi (which is a practice that all brewmasters should do, since you want to always have chi on hand for emergency Guards or Purifying Brews). To do this, I made your available chi slightly transparent when you have two or less, and normal opacity when you have three or more. The eye tends to pay less attention to transparent data, so you’re (hopefully) less likely to feel like you need to spend it.

Just like the older version, this aura changes depending on whether you have Ascension, Power Strikes, or Chi Brew talented.

Guard

I’ve moved Guard to a place of secondary prominence and size. The rest of the aura is the same as before, with a shield amount when it’s activated, cooldown count when it’s not available, and dimming when it’s off cooldown but you don’t have enough Chi.

Many people request an aura for the Power Guard buff from Tiger Palm. The reason I don’t have one is because my UI is already busy enough, and the absence of Power Guard usually doesn’t play into my decision making. Power Guard is incredibly easy to keep active if you just use Tiger Palm during the lulls in your rotation, so monitoring the buff isn’t worth extra brain cycles.

Elusive Brew

This aura has not changed much, either. I’ve moved it to what I think of as the “active mitigation row” and it now glows when you reach 15 stacks to remind you to use it. Just like the Stagger aura, it also gains a Healing Elixirs icon when talented and available.

Level 30 Healing Talents

The healing talents became an integral part of brewmaster rotations in 5.3, so it is now important to monitor these abilities as well. Each icon only appears when you have the respective talent selected.

The Chi Wave aura will glow when it’s available and show a cooldown when it’s not.

The Zen Sphere aura will glow when the spell is available and the HoT is not active on you. Otherwise, it will show the cooldown.

The Chi Burst aura will not glow like the others because we Brewmasters tend to spec into this only when there are certain encounters that benefit from grouped up heals, and not when we need to use it on cooldown.

Cooldown Group

This is simply a grouping and consolidation of the many defensive cooldowns available to brewmasters. It shows the icon and remaining cooldowns of the following abilities: Dampen Harm (when talented), Diffuse Magic (when talented), Fortifying Brew, Zen Meditation, and Healthstone. It’s a dynamic group, which means that the icons move around to make space for the rest of the auras in the group.